A really great read and a reminder that an awesome UX must be local and contextual. It's a practical example of importance of ethnography as a basis for empathizing with user requirements, and how simple everyday observation can offer many insights for designers and developers of global apps. In this case, Dan took advantage of a relocation from San Francisco to China to observe, document and share his insights.

Dan includes some great visual examples to illustrate the trends. I love the sections on how discovery is the new hamburger menu and how chat is a universal UI.
And you thought QR codes were dead?

Oracle Applications Cloud Release 9 is available in 23 national languages, including Traditional Chinese (ZHT) and Simplified Chinese (ZHS), by the way.

And, in keeping with the inspiration for the article, Dan's article is now available in Chinese too: 中国移动应用设计趋势解读

Thursday May 22, 2014

I demoed the Hebrew language version of Oracle Sales Cloud Release 8live in Israel recently, and the crowd was yet again wowed by the simplified UI (SUI).

I’ve now spent some time playing around with most of the 23 languages, the NLS (Natural Language Support) versions, as we’d call them, available in Release 8.

Hebrew Oracle Sales Cloud Release 8

The simplified UI is built using 100% Oracle ADF. The framework is a great solution for developers to productively build tablet-first, mobility-driven apps for users who work in natural languages other than English.

Oracle ADF’s internationalization (i18n) support leverages Java and Unicode and also packs more i18n goodness such as Bi-Di (or bi-directional) flipping of pages, locale-enabled resource bundles, date and time support, and so on.

Comparing Spanish (left) and Hebrew Bi-Di (right) page components in the simplified UI. Note the change in the direction of the arrows and alignment of the text.

So, developers don’t have to do anything special with regard to ADF components thanks to this baked-in UX Feng Shui, as Grant Ronald of the ADF team would say to the UK Oracle User Group.

Saturday Dec 07, 2013

Are you an Oracle partner who wants to know more about what's hot in user experience (UX)? Are you an Oracle applications customer with a workforce that needs to translate material quickly to be productive? Are those workers on the go? Need to keep their hands free? Well, here's just one reason why you need to be aware of the Oracle Applications UX team's outreach and communications programs run by Misha Vaughan (@mishavaughan).

At an Oracle partner event in Manchester in the UK that the Applications UX team ran with Oracle Worldwide Alliances and Channels for applications partners, the UX team showed what's coming in enterprise applications technology. This included a demo of Google Glass (that would fall into the "wearables" trend) with Word Lens augmented reality (or AR, that's another hot topic in UX) translation. Attendees were blown away by UXer Noel Portugal (@noelportugal) translating a warning sign from German to English live, in real time (below) just by looking. Think of the enterprise use cases prompted by this alone!

You can read more about that event on the Usable Apps blog, "Simple to Use. Simple to Build. Simple to Sell." The UX team is up on the latest in enterprise technology trends, and Oracle partners and customers can participate in shaping its user experience..

The Oracle Applications UX team is running these events for partners and customers worldwide. Stay tuned to the Voice of User Experience (VOX) blog or @usableappson Twitter for upcoming events, and to your Oracle PartnerNetwork and other channels too.